Thursday, August 7, 2014

Skinwalker Ranch – the strangest place on Earth

After publishing this article from the site listed below, I received a this message from George Knapp.

Since a large percentage of the material in this article is taken
directly from our book--including the references to the skinwalker
legend and the quotes from Junior Hicks, perhaps you could at least
reference it or list it as a footnote.

In northern Utah there exists a “ranch” so strange, so bizarre, that the National Institute for Discovery Science (owned by Las Vegas businessman and billionaire Bob Bigelow) purchased it solely for scientific research purposes. Located in the Uintah Basin near the town of Fort Duchesne, paranormal activities such as strange creatures, bizarre objects, black triangles, animal mutilations, and telepathic messages, have been reported on the 480 acre Skinwalker Ranch for hundreds of years. It is estimated that over half the population in the area have witnessed unusual paranormal activity on, or near what became known as the “Strangest Place on Earth”. Local Ute Indians believe the land to be cursed and tribe members are strictly forbidden to enter the property. The earliest attempts to document the paranormal accounts that occur at Skinwalker Ranch began in 1951 by a local science teacher named Junior Hicks. After spotting a large object cross the sky during broad daylight (the UFO sighting was also witnessed by the students of his class), Junior recognized that something strange was indeed going on around the Uintah Basin. Junior began documenting unusual accounts which resulted in a record of over 400 different paranormal events in the area of Skinwalker Ranch, some dating back more than five decades.

“The UFO activity really started getting intense in the early ’50s. There were cases where the whole school and all the teachers saw these things hovering over the town in broad daylight. In the ’60s and ’70s, we probably had more UFO sightings than any place in the world.”

In addition to the sightings of Uintah Basin citizens, Junior researched historical Indian lore after learning that the local Ute tribe will not enter the Skinwalker Ranch property. He discovered that the Ute Indians, who have lived in the area for thousands of years, believed the land to be cursed and plagued with mythical non-human, shape-shifting creatures called “skinwalkers”. The Ute Indians referred to the 400 acre plot of land as the “path of the skinwalker” and had referenced the land as such for hundreds of years.

Hicks explained the Utes legend of Skinwalker Ranch:

“The Utes take this very seriously. They think the Skinwalkers are powerful spirits that are here because of a curse that was put on them generations ago by the Navajos. And the center of the whole legend is this ranch. The Utes say the ranch is “the path of the skinwalker.” Tribe members are strictly forbidden from setting foot on the property. It’s been that way for a long time.”

From the late 70’s to early 1990’s, not much is known about the ranch nor its owners – except that it sat inexplicably vacant for many of those years. The Shermans take control of the abandoned property

Terry Sherman and his wife Gwen Sherman purchased Skinwalker ranch in 1994 with the intent of starting a cattle ranch business. The land had been effectively abandoned by the previous owners (tracking owners prior to 1960 has proven impossible) and the couple were curious why such prime property was not being utilized. The Sherman’s, Terry, his wife, and their two children, remained for only two years before fleeing in May of 1996.

Note: “Terry Sherman” and “Gwen Sherman” are the real names of the Skinwalker Ranch occupants – the names Tom Sherman, Tom Gillman, and Tom Gorman have been used as pseudonyms in other Skinwalker Ranch reports and on other websites.

Terry Sherman was an accomplished rancher when he began seeking property in Utah to expand his striving business. His reputation for his unique and scientific approach to cattle breeding preceded him. When the Sherman’s arrived at Skinwalker Ranch, which had been unaccountably vacant for several years, they were curious as to the purpose of all of the deadbolts that they found placed on windows and doors of the home and other buildings on the property. There were deadbolts on both sides of the doors. Even the kitchen cabinets had deadbolt locks on them. At both ends of the house, they found large iron stakes tied to heavy chains. They were unsure if the chains were meant to provide a taught barrier, or to restrain some sort of large animal. Shermans experience strange phenomena

During their two years on the property they experienced mysterious voices coming from the air, multiple cattle mutilations (in just two years, Terry Sherman lost 14 of his 80 head heard), bizarre, exotic multi-colored birds, inanimate objects flying around their home and property, UFO’s flying above their land, weird beastly creatures, and many more paranormal activities.

On the first day that the Sherman’s moved their furnishings onto the property, they had their first foreshadowing of the events that would follow. They spotted an extremely large wolf in a nearby pasture. The wolf cautiously made its way across the field, and, to the surprise of everyone, sidled up to the family like a long-lost family pet (it even let the family pet it). It had rained that day, and the family remembers the wolf smelled like a wet dog.

After a few minutes, the wolf casually strolled over to the corral and grabbed a young calf by its snout, attempting to pull it through the corral bars. Sherman and his son rush to the calf’s aid and began beating on the wolf’s back with an axe handle but still, the wolf would not release the calf. Sherman’s son grabbed a .357 Magnum from his truck and shot the wolf at point-blank range. The slug had no noticeable effect. The animal did not make a sound nor did it bleed. It simply ignored the shots and continued pulling on the calf.

Sherman quickly shot the wolf again, which then let go of the calf and turned around, looking at the family as if puzzled, and amused, by what was going on. Sherman shot it two more times with the powerful handgun. The big animal backed off a bit, but still showed no signs of distress or injury.

The mystified rancher retrieved a hunting rifle from his truck and shot the wolf again, once more at close range. Five slugs should have been enough to bring down an elk, let alone a wolf. The fifth shot caused a chunk of hair and flesh to fly off the wolf, but it still didn’t seem fazed. It just stood there, staring back at the family with an expressionless look on its face. After a sixth shot, the wolf slowly trotted across the field into a muddy thicket. Sherman and his father tracked the beast for about a mile, following its paw prints through the mud, but the tracks suddenly ended, as if the wolf had simply vanished into thin air.

Several more wolf sightings occurred during their stay at Skinwalker Ranch. In one notable instance, Sherman’s wife spotted a large wolf as she drove in her Chevette through the gated entry to the farm. She noted that the wolf was three times larger than a standard wolf, his head reaching above the roof of the Chevy Chevette she was driving. The family recalled many instances where freakishly large wolf-like creatures were seen on the Skinwalker Ranch property.

As their stay at the Skinwalker Ranch drew longer, the Sherman’s saw and experienced more remarkable encounters. Sometimes in the middle of the night, their entire pasture would light up as if illuminated by football stadium lights. They often smelled strong musk-like odors emanating throughout the house. Bright shafts of light would be seen beaming from the ground towards the sky. They often heard what sounded like large, earth moving machinery coming from inside the ground. While they worked in the middle of the pasture they would hear mysterious voices, seemingly floating in the air above them, conversing with each other. Crop circles, circular ice patterns, and large holes in the ground would appear overnight in areas all around the Skinwalker Ranch property.

In one notable instance, Mrs. Sherman returned from the grocery store with several bags of groceries. She unpacked the goods placing each item in the cabinet or refrigerator. She folded the bags on the counter and then made a quick trip to the bathroom. When she returned, she was astounded to see the bags back on the counter filled with the groceries she had unloaded only moments before.

During their attempts to work the ranch, cattle mutilations, which were detrimental to Sherman’s business, were common events. Whereas a normal rancher might lose 1% of his heard in a bad year, Terry Sherman had already lost 20% of his herd in just 20 months. One day, as the Sherman’s were driving off the property to run an errand in town, he commented about his four bulls noting out loud that “they would sure be in big trouble if they ever lost one of those bulls”. When they returned from town, all four bulls were missing. They searched the grounds to no avail. On a whim, Terry peeks over the rails into an unused locked trailer. All four bulls were stuffed into the trailer like sardines. The trailer was locked and as Terry noted, had cobwebs on the locks. Terry knew that it would have been nearly impossible to coach even one of the large, aggressive bulls into the small container, much less four of the huge, aggressive beasts. Many UFO sightings on the property

Mysterious flying craft were frequently spotted zipping above the ranch land. In various shapes and colors, the Sherman’s even reported seeing a refrigerator-shaped object about the size of an RV with a white light at the front and a red light at the back. Terry had looked out a windows and noticed what he thought was an RV in the pasture. Thinking it was a tourist that was lost, he told his wife he was going outside to help them find their way. As he approached the vehicle, it rose straight into the air and flew out of sight.

By far the most common objects they witnessed were floating spheres of different sizes and colors. In 1995 and 1996, the Sherman’s (and other guests on the property) reported 12 separate incidents of seeing large orange circles flying over the trees of the center homestead. Terry Sherman claims that holes occasionally opened up in the orange spheres and other smaller spheres would fly out. A neighboring rancher confirmed the sightings, telling a reporter of his own encounters with what he called “a flying orange basketball”.

Blue orbs were also witnessed on the property and unlike the orange orbs, these were to be feared. About basketball sized, the objects were obviously intelligently controlled making quick turns as they skirted about the property.

One evening in May 1996, Sherman was outside with three of his cattle dogs when he noticed a blue orb darting around in the field near the ranch house. Sherman urged his dogs to go after the ball. The dogs chased and snapped at the orb, but it dodged and maneuvered enough to stay just beyond the reach of their snapping jaws. The ball led the dogs out across the pasture and into the thick brush that borders the field. Sherman says he heard the dogs make three terrible yelps, then they were silent. He called for them, but they didn’t respond.

Alarmed at the event, Sherman decided to not investigate further until the following day. The next morning, Sherman went to look for the dogs. What he found were three round spots of dried and brittle vegetation. In the middle of each circle was a black, greasy lump. Sherman surmised that his dogs had been incinerated by something. The disappearance of their prized cattle dogs prompted the Sherman’s to consider abandoning the premise. Sherman’s flee the premises

After two years living in Skinwalker Ranch, the family found it difficult to sleep at night. When they did manage to grab a few hours of sleep, they were plagued by violent nightmares, often discovering later that different family members had experienced identical dreams during the night. The two kids, honor students before arriving at the ranch, saw their grades plummet. Mrs. Sherman lost her job at a local bank because of her repeated absences and disturbing water-cooler tales. And Terry Sherman lost a significant percentage of his herd. Hoping for safety in numbers, the Sherman’s began sleeping each night on the floor of their front room. NIDS takes ownership of Skinwalker Ranch

Fortunately for the Sherman’s, the activity on Skinwalker Ranch had reached legendary proportions and word spread throughout the country. In late 1996, Bob Bigelow (Budget Suites hotel entrepreneur and aerospace entrepreneur) purchased the ranch from the Sherman’s for $200,000 for the now defunct National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS). Immediately after the purchase a flurry of intense activity occurred on the property.

Scientists from NIDS moved into Skinwalker Ranch and began their investigations in August of 1996. They installed video cameras and other sensitive monitoring equipment, built new fencing and constructed observation posts manned with trained observers, in hopes of collecting evidence for scientific study. The first night they reported seeing two bright yellow orbs hovering 15 to 20 feet off the ground. As they moved closer to the lights, they saw a human like animal scramble high into a tree. They moved towards the tree line to get a closer look at the animal, the apparent size of the animal growing larger and larger as they neared the trees. An area rancher who accompanied the scientists, fired shots at the animal claiming, “they won’t get any more of our cattle tonight”. Thinking that they wounded the animal, they searched the ground for traces of blood. No blood was found but strange, tracks were discovered in the snow. The tracks were large, clearly defined, and indicated the animal had large human like feet with very long claws. Not wanting public exposure that would bring onlookers and disrupt their scientific research, NIDS remained fairly quiet about the incidents for many years.

Up until 2002 and from 2006 onward, NIDS investigators and research scientists continued documenting various paranormal events using various high-end electronic equipment and highly qualified investigators. The immediately noted that cattle mutilations were routine occurrences and often happened within a few hundred yards of investigators. Necropsy analysis of the cattle corpses revealed that a sharp instrument had been used in the dismemberment of the animals. They deduced that the dismemberment would have taken quite some time to complete which was inexplicable to the scientists because on at least one occasion, the cattle was seen alive moments earlier and the researchers remained within 300 yards of the animal at all times. They were also astounded that 40% of the body mass of the mutilated animal could be removed without leaving a single trace of blood on the ground.

Additional activity reported at the ranch includes unusual or strange aircraft, balls of light floating above the ground, poltergeist activity in and around the property, cattle mutilations, strange alterations to the surface of the land (hundreds of pounds of soil moved from place to place in the course of a single night), and strange humanoid like creatures roaming the ranch.

One NIDS researcher explained the experience:

“It isn’t as simple as saying that ET’s or flying saucers are doing it. It’s some kind of consciousness, but it’s always something new and different, something non- repeatable. It’s reactive to people and equipment, and we set up the ranch to be a proving ground for the scientific method, but science doesn’t seem amenable to the solution of these kinds of problems.”

By 2002, paranormal activity at Utah’s Skinwalker Ranch had begun to decline and by year’s end, reached the point where the National Institute for Science Discovery decided it was not financially feasible to keep a full-time crew of researchers on the premises. Scientists continued making visits and recording incidents up until 2007 at which time they noted the pattern of unusual activity had begun to increase once again. Conclusion

The Skinwalker Ranch is a private facility, still owned by the National Institute for Science Discovery. It is still guarded and under electronic surveillance. Visitors who have attempted to enter the property have been told that the ranch is “considered dangerous and unpredictable”. It is located at geographic coordinates 40°15’31″N 109°53’16″W and is fenced and often guarded. The grounds can be viewed from outside the gates though. Additional Information Desert News Article (1996)

The following is a news article that appeared in the Desert News. The article is one of the first news reports documenting the Sherman’s experiences at Skinwalker Ranch and one of the few that mention the Sherman’s using their real names.

Frequent Flyers? Those aliens do get around.

By Zack Van Eyck Deseret News staff writer

For species that supposedly don’t exist, aliens sure do get around.

Extraterrestrial beings and the aircraft they purportedly fly have become an indelible part of American and world culture. You can’t watch TV for long anymore without seeing some reference to aliens. It’s as if they’ve hired a slick public relations firm to maximize their exposure.

Even Hollywood has a new fixation with ETs. The much-awaited “Independence Day,” expected to be this summer’s blockbuster, is unleashing an alien invasion of earth at a theater near you this week.

Of course, everyone knows that humans are the only intelligent life in the universe, UFOs don’t exist, all crop circles are faked by two English blokes, cattle mutilations are carried out by laser-wielding coyotes and bigfoot will have a sizable bill to pay if he ever returns that rental costume.

Well, not everyone.

“My personal opinion, not speaking for Hansen Planetarium or Salt Lake County, is that the universe is teeming with life,” said Patrick Wiggins, a spokesman for the planetarium.

“There are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on planet earth. The notion that anybody would say that out of that incredible number of stars there is only one planet that has life on it, that’s ludicrous. That’s egocentric to the max.”

Terry and Gwen Sherman wish some of that teeming intergalactic life would find somewhere else to hang out. For more than a year now the Shermans’ 480-acre ranch just south of Fort Duchesne in Uintah County has been a hotbed for UFOs and bizarre paranormal activity — weirdness that even the Shermans, who’ve witnessed the strange happenings with their own eyes and video camera, have trouble accepting as reality.

“For a long time we wondered what we were seeing, if it was something to do with a top-secret project,” said Terry Sherman, who reluctantly agreed to speak publicly about the activity for the first time. “I don’t know really what to think about it.”

The Shermans, their teenage son and 10-year-old daughter have seen three specific types of UFOs repeatedly during the past 15 months — a small boxlike craft with a white light, a 40- foot-long object and a huge ship the size of several football fields. They’ve seen one craft emit a wavy red ray or light beam as it flies along. They’ve seen other airborne lights, some of which have emerged from orange, circular doorways that seem to appear in midair. They’ve videotaped two of the sightings.

Mystery circles

They once discovered three circles of flattened grass, each about 8 feet across, in a triangular pattern about 30 feet from each other. In a nearby pasture, other strange soil impressions have been found — circles about 3 feet wide and a foot or two deep with the dirt in the center perfectly flattened.

One of the flying lights followed Gwen’s car on her way home from work one night. And while out in one of the fields with the family dogs, Terry heard male voices speaking an unfamiliar language. The voices seemed to be about 25 feet above him, but Terry couldn’t see a thing. The dogs were frantic. They barked and growled before running off to the ranch house, Terry said.

The Shermans have linked the sightings with the death or disappearance of seven of their cows. Four have disappeared without a trace. Three others have been found dead and partially mutilated.

“We’ve seen (the UFOs) enough and we know pretty much what the craft look like, and I think it’s definitely associated with the cattle mutilations — when we see the crafts and then the cattle, we have problems,” Sherman said.

“You talk to a lot of people around here that at one time or another have seen something they can’t explain. There’s been a lot of cattle mutilations, and a lot of them weren’t reported. Several (ranchers) told me that when they had a (mutilation), they called the authorities and the authorities couldn’t do anything, so it was just a waste of time and effort.”

Indeed, the records clerk for the Uintah County Sheriff’s Department said her department has not received reports of UFOs or cattle mutilations in recent memory. Sheriff Ralph Stansfield in nearby Duchesne County said he is unaware of any UFOs or mutilations being reported in the past 18 months.

Although the Shermans haven’t told officials about the cattle mutilations or UFO activity, they have confided in Joseph “Junior” Hicks, a retired junior high school teacher from Roosevelt who has investigated more than 400 UFO sightings in the Uintah Basin since the early 1950s.

Reports of UFOs during that time have numbered in the thousands, according to Hicks, and some have been associated with cattle mutilations. Over the years, Hicks said, at least a half-dozen eyewitnesses have told him they saw living beings in the windows or portholes of UFOs. To Hicks, the Shermans’ sightings are extraordinary for their number, duration and quality. But what they’ve witnessed is hardly unusual for the Uintah Basin, he said.

“I’d estimate over 10 percent of the population of the Uintah Basin has seen something,” Hicks said. “I think what’s happening is we are being visited from beings from another world or some other place. I think primarily it’s research and exploration.”

Sightings abound

Utah’s UFO activity isn’t limited to the Uintah Basin.

Controversial film footage of flying discs was taken by a Navy warrant officer near Tremonton in 1952. A “fireball” that raced above Salt Lake City’s skies and drew considerable attention in the Nephi area in 1962 is considered suspicious by some UFO investigators.

Pat Roach, a Lehi woman working for Geneva Steel at the time, attracted national attention when she went public with her account of an alien abduction she said occurred in 1973.

Bill Lyons, a Mutual UFO Network investigator in Iron County, is intrigued by a February 1993 incident in which a man and woman saw a dozen UFOs near Hurricane, including an egg-shaped craft with telephone pole-size landing gear and a large hot dog-shaped craft. After the sightings, the couple surveyed the ground nearby and found a trail of small three-toed footprints in the snow. Other markings indicated a tail might have been dragging behind whatever made the prints.

“The thing that struck me about this sighting was its depth and the copious amounts of information,” Lyons said. “There was just so much detail to it.”

The woman, who lives in Kanab, confirmed the sighting in an interview with the Deseret News but did not want her name published.

Ryan Layton, a Davis County resident, has interviewed more than two dozen Utahns who claim to have seen UFOs. He knows of an Emery County couple whose 16-year-old daughter believes she has been abducted repeatedly by an alien with red glowing eyes.

“I know they’re out there,” Layton said.

Businessman Paul Pedersen agreed to speak publicly for the first time about an event he says occurred in 1964. As Pedersen was leaving a neighbor’s Emigration Canyon home early one morning, he noticed a huge oval-shaped craft in the sky above him.

“It drifted over and down and then hovered above the driveway,” Pedersen said. “As it stood still, people inside came to the portholes and looked out at me. That kind of unnerved me because it was so dark I knew I couldn’t be seen by human eyes. . . . They looked just like people. They were silhouetted against this green light in the background.”

Pedersen then received a telepathic message from the beings. They asked if he’d like to come with them.

“It was one individual’s voice,” he said. “I didn’t say anything but answered by thinking. My thought was that I can’t leave, I have a wife and two children who depend on me. Their response was, ‘That’s OK,’ and the craft just hovered up above the trees and went over the mountain behind me.”

Ray Kelsey of West Valley City says he was working in a Wyoming oil field in the 1970s when he and 250 others saw a UFO above an oil rig. The rig later exploded. Kelsey said superiors told the workers not to report the incident.

“They were taking something out of the ground, oil or something black, but it wasn’t a solid stream. It was particles — like a beam,” Kelsey said. “The ship itself had different colored lights and was transparent.”

Local filmmaker Trent Harris, who is sponsoring a UFO film festival late next month in Bicknell, heard similar stories recently while filming in Zion National Park.

Hard evidence to support such claims is sorely lacking, however, and eyewitness accounts just can’t be trusted, according to Barry Karr. He is the executive director of the New York-based Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, which publishes “Skeptical Inquirer” magazine.

“There is no good, physical evidence that we are being visited by beings from other planets,” Karr said in a telephone interview. “There’s no question that people see things in the sky that they can’t identify, but that just means at the moment those things are unidentified.”

Karr said many CSICOP members are open to the idea that intelligent life may exist elsewhere. They just don’t believe that life is now visiting Earth.

“We don’t know exactly what they saw,” Karr said when told about what the Shermans say they’ve seen. “You can’t take eyewitness testimony for it. I have people who have told me elaborate stories about what they’ve seen and you do some research and it turns out to be a blimp. I think it’s very unlikely that what they’re seeing is from another planet.”

UFO paradise

The Shermans’ ranch would be paradise if they were UFO researchers, but strange lights in the sky weren’t what what the couple was looking for when they bought the ranch two years ago. They wanted a quiet place where they could get away from it all. Gwen, a Uintah Basin native, and Terry, who moved here from Arizona when he was 17, had no idea what they were in for.

The ranch sat idle for seven years after the previous owners passed away, and it took awhile for the Shermans to remodel the old house and move in. Before they took up residence, Terry noticed one of the strange circular depressions in the pasture west of the house. He assumed someone had removed a tree. In April of 1995, the family got a taste of what was to come. Terry stepped out of the house to check on a cow that was calving in the field south of the house when he noticed lights in the field. He assumed they belonged to recreation vehicles, maybe kids from a neighboring farm riding four-wheelers.

That didn’t make a lot of sense, though. The ranch is isolated, three miles from the main road, and access is cut off by a creek and a huge rock ridge.

“It went clear down here and just above where this cow’s mutilated,” Sherman said, pointing to where that first UFO was seen. “It went over some poplar trees there that are probably 40 to 50 feet tall. That’s the first time we realized it wasn’t an RV.”

Gwen didn’t see the object that time but had a sighting of her own later.

“It looked like headlights, but they were a little ways away from the craft and there was a red glowing thing, about an 18-inch circle,” she said. “It just lit the whole side of the mountain up like broad daylight.”

In the months to follow, the Shermans saw myriad lights and flying objects, including more than a dozen on one evening. Sightings generally occur during a new moon and often when the sky is overcast or stormy. Their most recent encounter took place in May during a thunderstorm.

Terry and his son believe they may have communicated with one of the craft. As they traveled west on the ranch road one evening, they saw a lighted object duck behind the rock ridge as if to avoid them. Moments later they managed to sneak up on the object. Before it could hide again, they stood and waved their arms at it. The light flashed on and off three times, as if signaling them, and then disappeared.

Cattle mutilations

Soon after sightings began, the Shermans found one of their cows dead in a field. It had a peculiar hole in the center of its left eyeball but was otherwise untouched with no trace of blood. There was no evidence of predators, footprints or tire tracks. A strange, chemical-like odor was present.

Later, another dead cow was found with a similar hole in its left eye and a 6-inch hole, only about an inch deep, carved out of its rectum. The same chemical smell was noticeable.

Cattle mutilations have been reported across the United States since the 1960s, particularly in Western states. In “classic” mutilation cases, the anus is cored out and the cow’s udders and genitalia are removed, all with laser-like precision and no visible sign of blood. The Shermans, who keep close watch on their cattle, believe they may have interrupted the mutilators before they were able to finish.

Then cows began disappearing altogether.

“We about rode the saddle horses to death looking for cattle until we realized” they were vanishing, Terry said.

One appeared to be lifted from the snow where it stood. The Shermans saw the cow’s hoofprints lead into the field, but the prints stopped at the edge of the field near some trees. The area where the cow apparently took its last steps was surrounded by a circle of broken twigs and branches. Above, Terry noticed the tops of the trees appeared to have been cut off.

“If it’s snow, it’s hard for a 1,200- or 1,400-pound animal to just walk off without leaving tracks or to stop and walk backwards completely and never miss their tracks,” Terry said. “It was just gone. It was very bizarre.”

The last of the three dead cows was found in January in a clump of trees at the edge of the same field. The cow, which had been seen alive by the Shermans’ son just five minutes earlier, had a 6-inch wide, 18-inch deep hole cored out of its rectum and extending into the body cavity. There was no blood on the cow or the snow, and the same chemical odor was apparent. There was a circle of twigs around the fallen cow and the tops of the trees appeared severed.

Karr is skeptical. He believes the conclusions of a 1980 New Mexico study by retired FBI agent Ken Rommel Jr., who decided mutilations there were the work of toxic plants and predatory animals. Rommel’s findings are rejected by many New Mexico ranchers, some of whom have lost cows to the phenomenon in the 1990s.

Hard to deal with

The cattle deaths and disappearances have been troubling, both psychologically and financially. Even while the Shermans wonder if they can believe what they’re seeing, their bank account has taken a hit. The mutilators didn’t take just any cows, they took the best ones, Terry said.

“I’ve got a neighbor over here who’s reluctant to talk but he told me they’ve had trouble since he was a small kid and he’s probably 55,” Terry said. “He told me, ‘People will think you’re crazy but you’re not. If you are, then we both have the same problem.’ ”

Leland Mecham, who lives in nearby Neola, knows the Shermans are not insane. He had two prolonged observations of UFOs, one in the mid-1960s and another a decade later. The second craft he saw was gigantic and had rays of colored light shooting out from its underbelly. After it scanned the landscape, it elevated, streaked across the sky and was gone in an instant, Mecham said.

“There’s no way it was swamp gas or balloons like everybody tries to pass it off,” Mecham said. “I was probably as skeptical as any man alive, but when I saw these, in my opinion, they had to be operated by somebody. It couldn’t be any other way. And I don’t think there’s anything we’ve got that could move that quick.”

The Shermans may never know the cause or reason for what they’ve experienced, but they know one thing — they just want it to stop. Universe reports on strange Utah occurrences

By Lezlee E. Whiting, Correspondent

A Los Angeles-based TV news magazine that delves into unexplained, extraordinary and bizarre occurrences throughout the universe will feature some rather odd activity being reported in west Uintah County. Reporters from “Strange Universe,” a syndicated show that airs locally on Channel 4 at midnight, were in the area two weeks ago to interview people in connection with the sightings of UFOs and incidents of cattle disappearances and mutilations on the former Sherman ranch between Fort Duchesne and Randlett, Uintah County.

The 480-acre ranch was purchased three months ago by Las Vegas millionaire Robert T. Bigelow, perhaps the most prominent American financier in the paranormal research field. Bigelow has established the National Institute for Discovery Science and has erected an observation building at the ranch and moved in a pair of scientists and a veterinarian. Someone is on the property 24 hours a day to record anything out of the ordinary.

Terry and Gwen Sherman gained national notoriety last June when their experiences – including sightings of several types of UFOs, cattle mutilations and unusual soil impressions and circles of flattened grass in a pasture – were featured in a Deseret News story and on a national radio broadcast.

Producers from “Strange Universe” picked up the story and sent a four-member crew to the Roosevelt area in late November to conduct interviews and tape what will air as a five-minute segment Friday, Dec. 13, said production assistant Renee Barnett.

“We talked to believers, skeptics, a paranormal investigator, a veterinarian, a friend of the former owner, it was our intent to turn the camera on what seems to be quite an unexplained mystery in your part of the area,” said Margaret Roberts, one of the show’s executive producers. “This is very much the heart of our show to go out in areas where sightings have been reported and apply classic journalism to the story . . . our position is that we go out to cover the story neither as believers or debunkers.”

Reporters from “Strange Universe” also talked with Deseret News reporter Zack Van Eyck, who broke the story. Those working for Bigelow declined to be interviewed.

One of those interviewed was Roosevelt veterinarian Dr. Dan Dennis, who is assisting the veterinarian working at the Institute for Discovery Science in conducting necropsies on livestock that farmers and ranchers report as being the victims of strange deaths.

So far only one case has been investigated. The death of the cow in that incident was not attributed to mutilation.

Dennis said he told interviewers that in his 40 years as a veterinarian in the Uintah Basin he has seen only one case that he felt “fit the category” of an actual mutilation. That case involved a horse that had been sliced open and cut in pieces and occurred about 25 to 30 years ago north of the sales barn in Ballard.

No pictures or records were made, said Dennis, so it’s impossible to go back and review the incident. It occurred in the 1950s or 1960s when “alien sightings were quite actively present around here,” he said. Regarding numerous claims of cattle mutilations, Dennis feels they are actually “10 percent scavenger activity and 90 percent imagination.” Native witness account

Below is a account from a local native of the area in which he listed several occurrences he witnessed during his time living around the Skinwalker Ranch. The accounts were sent in an email to a local Skinwalker Ranch researcher.

I was 12 years old and we were heading down to Randlett for a Beardance with my Father,Mother and Brother. We got past the Police Dept. and across the firing range my dad stopped and drove backwards..My brother and I were in the back bed of the truck and tapped on the window and said look over there. We looked and we saw Monkeys, a lot of them, running up this hill next to this old shack. What was weird is that it was in broad daylight when we saw these things. I was like, “what are monkeys doing out here????” Yes, monkeys. I will never forget that day ever in my life. One time I went to visit my brother and my son. This was in 2004 and we were in the bedroom talking and my niece was talking loud in the next room and my brother came to the room and said do you know how to use a gun? I was like I grew up with guns crazy guy! lol…But he was serious and told me to lock all the doors and windows and pull the shades down. I was like okay??? But then asked what is going on.? He said that something tall and dark was out there and that his daughter had seen it by the corner of the house. They were pretty much freaked by what they saw. We did what was asked and he went out to see what was going on and but nothing was there. Well, that following morning we were talking but still half asleep. The door to our room banged shut real loud that it would wake up the whole house. I was like what the heck? So I went to look to see if anyone had shut it and everyone else was asleep.

Later that night- my son was playing his violin outside on the porch and while he was turning his pages, he heard a loud breathing noise around the corner, but he continued to play, because he thought [it was] horses snorting or something. But he quit playing and again the same thing. So he said to just leave it at that and go in.

One night as we were going to this apartment building we saw a lot of children running and crying. We were like okay what’s going on? Someone said that they confronted this thing, not a person, a thing standing by the playground and it had a heavy coat on and a hat and bulging eyes. I was what??!!! No way. But they were telling the truth..because I seen the kids crying.

We heard a Bigfoot bellowing in Uintah Canyon that woke my husband up from a deep sleep. I was watching Finding Bigfoot and they had recording of yelling and I was like that’s it that’s it- The yell is similar to what we heard that night. It was eerie high scream it was not a cougar,bear or whatever…it was so scary..

One time my son was living my sister in Ft.Duchesne and the person she was dating was a police officer. Well, he came up to tell them that something was out there and they were chasing it. He told them to get into the house as they watched from the window, cause they lived on the hill, they saw police lights and dogs howling and trash cans being tipped over. Yes, it echoed and it was loud whatever it was, was making a rukus. They never knew what it was. They said they shot it and they were chasing it from the bridge by highway 40 and it ran at exceeding rate. They lost it by deadmans curve.

My mom and my sister were mentioned in the book..Uintah Basin UFO book of seeing lights around that area.

These are all the ones I know plus many more…These people are my family and when they tell me these..they sweat, goosebumps and just jittery voices when they tell it. So I know it is real. There are things out there..that chooses certain people to see them like my friend who went to work in the morning hours in fort Duchesne. Right past Hilltop on the east side of the hill, she saw 4 skinwalkers cross the road. She wasn’t going fast and her daughter was in the back seat sleeping and she knew going fast would just not be smart. She said they were tall, hairy and they just looked so hard to describe she said. She waited for them to cross. This was like around 4:30 am. She rushed to work all the way around instead of going by the lake. She told her boss about it and she said we know there is crazy things going on. Told her to come in when morning breaks.

See they are chosen to see these strange beings. To make them believe and not understand.

My dad once told me that when they went to Dark Canyon by Uintah Mountains..they were hunting and when they were woods..they smelt a bad odor of dead animal. He told them he said lets go and leave this Big Man to his business and he shouted out to him…We will leave you alone now! and they left and came home to tell us. They never hunted up there again.

That later in week..they had alot of calf mutilations around the Whiterocks area. This was in 85.

So now, I can go on and on about things like this. But like I said, people tend to hear things and see things that boggles the mind. I’m one of them. Investigative report of Sherman Ranch Activities

The following is an independent report from a Skinwalker Ranch (aka Sherman Ranch) investigation conducted by the Nevada Remote Viewing Group around 1995. The group reportedly uses unusual methods to “remotely view” a location. The group has been in existence for over a decade and is led by Dr. Angela Thompson Smith. The report is relevant because many cases of “‘telepathic messages” have been reported at Skinwalker Ranch.

The following project was presented to The Nevada Remote Viewing Group in October, 2002 and a request made for assistance. Help was requested in identifying the nature of activities at a location in eastern Utah, known as the Sherman Ranch, around 1995 and 1996 (Phase One), current activities at the location (Phase Two), and future activities at the site (Phase Three).

The Nevada Remote Viewing Group is an organization of trained remote viewers who are located around the USA who accept humanitarian remote viewing projects. They also carry out paid remote viewing projects for private individuals, groups, and organizations.

VIEWERS

Two viewers, identified by pseudonyms, initially responded to the project. Later, three additional viewers provided data. The five viewers were tasked with a coordinate, that is, a random series of letters and numbers identifying the project, in this case SR110202. Viewers used a combination of remote viewing methods: Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) and Extended Remote Viewing (ERV). The viewers were given operational and directional front loading: Describe the location and events at this location as of July, 1996. Apart from the coordinate and operational directions, the viewers worked “blind”, that is, they did not know the nature of the project nor did they know of the case manager’s discussion with the client. Another two viewers contributed data towards current and future perceptions of the ranch. They were tasked with the directions: The target is a location, describe any current activity at the location, and The target is a location, describe activity at the location in five years.

SUMMARY

The indications, from the first two viewers who completed Phase One, were that this was the site of a military operation, probably conducted by the Navy. There were individuals at the site involved in “target practice” with rifles that involved lying prone on the ground. Men in uniform, such as policemen, firefighters, or soldiers were present. Several oblong devices were described.

A sketch and description of a male and identifying injuries or tattoos were described. There is a project ongoing at the site that involves cartographers and maps of the United States. Most of the activity appears to take place outdoors, at night. The three additional viewers perceived gridded and honeycomb surfaces, a flat surface and one that was rounded like a globe. The interior and functioning of the globe was described. Two viewers felt wave-like, seismic vibrations.

Current activity at the location indicated a series of installations having been built including a grid-work of wires and small platforms that have been embedded in the ground at the location, a tall, TV-like antenna, and a communications-type building.

Future activity, five years from now, indicates that a fire, either caused by nature or accidental will have burned the communications-type building and a parcel of land surrounding the tower and building.

CASE INFORMATION

What is already known about this case?

Information about this case was gathered from a newspaper cutting in the Las Vegas Review Journal, dated Thursday, October 24, 1996, entitled Las Vegas millionaire buys UFO ranch in eastern Utah. The case manager had also heard word-of-mouth accounts of the purchase of the ranch and the local activities. The goal of this project was not to confirm known information but to look for new and unknown information regarding activities at the location.

FORT DUCHESNE, Utah – The search for answers to one of science’s greatest questions has led Las Vegas millionaire Robert M. Bigelow to an isolated cattle ranch in the heart of eastern Utah’s Uintah Basin.

Here, far from the bright lights of his native Las Vegas, the real estate magnate hopes his team of scientists can unearth the roots of UFO folklore prevalent in this region since the 1950s.

Bigelow, easily the most prominent American financier in the paranormal research field, is convinced there is something to the weird stories told by the family of terry Sherman.

Last July, the Shermans broke years of silence and went public with bizarre tails of strange lights and UFPs on their 480-acre ranch.

Sherman said he and other members of his family had seen lights emerging from circular “doorways” that seemed to appear in mid-air, had three cows strangely mutilated, and several others disappear. The rancher also reported unusual impressions in the soil and circles of flattened grass in a pasture.

The Sherman’s story appeared in Salt Lake City’s Deseret News and on a national radio broadcast. Several weeks later, Bigelow met with the Shermans and negotiated to buy the ranch for about $200,000.

The Sherman family has relocated to a smaller ranch 15 miles away – far removed, they hope, from the disturbing occurrences they endured for 18 months.

Bigelow has erected an observation building and moved in a pair of scientists and a veterinarian. He has someone on the property 24 hours a day, recording anything out of the ordinary.

Officially, the research is being conducted by the National Institute for Discovery Science, which Bigelow formed last October. Among the scientists involved is John B. Alexander, former director of nonlethal weapons testing at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

“Our approach is to do good, high-quality research using a standard scientific approach and do what we can t get hard data.” Alexander said from the Institute’s Las Vegas offices. “One of the missions of the institute is to make information widely available.”

Bigelow himself declined an interview. Alexander would not provide details of how or why the research is being conducted.

Sherman, now employed by Bigelow to maintain the ranch, said he can no longer discuss the activity because of a nondisclosure agreement Bigelow had him sign.

Alexander said results of the study would be published in scientific journals and on the institute’s web page. The secretive behavior concerns other UFO researchers, including Ryan Layton of Utah and Chris O’Brien of Crestone Colo. Both visited the ranch in July before Bigelow became involved.

PHASE ONE:

VIEWER #1: Juice

Viewer #1 used a form of Extended Remote Viewing (ERV: remote viewing conducted in an altered state of consciousness). Her sketches (attached) of her perceptions indicated the following scenario:

• A sketch of a man with dark glasses. “His hair was dark, with that unkempt, spiky, sticking-up look. He appeared to be pushing/pulling another person. I think it was another person. I am unsure because the person seemed to be sagging.” • A sketch of a man lying facedown on the ground. “This person, I had a very quick look at, but he was laying face down while looking upward. I think he had his hands behind his back.” • Sketch of a rectangular box. “The rectangular box had many smaller boxes stacked inside. I think the smaller boxes were made of cardboard. The whole thing was sitting on a table with a green and white checkered tablecloth.” • Sketch of a right hand. “I saw a right hand with these marks on it. These marks were possibly tattoos or injuries.” • Sketch of a box with a hand taking something out. “A rectangular shape that appeared to have a slot in the front. Something was pulled out. The front had other square-like shapes on it. • Sketch of a spring or coil. “This was spring or coil shaped. It was turning.” • Other perceptions included her feeling that her hands hurt, especially her left palm and her right pointer finger. She perceived maps of the United States and the concept of something being broken into, such as breaking into a house.

VIEWER #2: Dragonfly

Viewer #2 used Controlled Remote Viewing (CRV) protocol to carry out her session. She began her session in a state of nervousness and her initial perceptions were of a landmass and a structure. Several lifeforms were perceived at the site, male and female.

As her session proceeded she continued to feel anxious and perceived images of the Pentagon building, and impressions of the Navy and prison. There was mention made of cartographers and a map. She felt nausea and smelled a fire, as if something was burning.

Images persisted of death, a rifle, and military training. There was a visual of a young man lying prone on the ground aiming a rifle at a target. Images of a medical situation with a woman on a guerney. There were fleeting images of firefighters, being on board a Navy ship, and a photographer’s dark room with a reddish light. The viewer felt that the scene resembled a 4th of July celebration and mentioned sparkling lights in a dark sky. Water and wetness was described and the activity took place, outdoors, on a wet night. Viewer #2 produced no sketches

ADDITIONAL DATA – PHASE ONE:

Viewer #3 – Scout

Viewer #3 described the location as an institutional area that was mostly gray with weather that was overcast and glum. The main physical building was described as a very large, equal-sided structure with an open, paved, central courtyard, like a quad.

The viewer perceived a set of man-made items:

• An expansive, metallic, honeycombed surface, a man-made open space, and • A silvery item, held in the left hand, that looks like a pair of ice-tongs. • A regiment pattern of motion between the tongs and the honeycombed surface was perceived. (Sketch attached) There was also a grayish-greenish, “gunky” fluid that runs along the base of the surface. Human-animal interaction perceived several times. • At one point, the viewer perceived a quick, human, lateral motion that appeared to be red. The human component of the target site was focused to the point of tunnel-vision on a specific set of criteria or data-set. They are missing some obvious points because they are overly focused on minutiae. • Other movements perceived by Scout were patterns like a heart-beat that could be perceived as seismic waves. Other patterns perceived were I-Ching sets of lines and spaces. • Viewer perceived that premature conclusions were being made, and decisions being made, too soon, before all the evidence is in. The focus of the intent of the target gave her a headache. Very focused.

Viewer #4 – UK

Viewer #4 used ERV and perceived a series of shapes and images as follows:

• A wild shaking such as waves • A sloped, flat wedge shape • A grid-mesh, coated in something, contained behind it is some gelatinous substance with a strange chemical composition. Size of holes is just a bit bigger than necessary to put fingers through to tug on it • Grid with a sphere on top. Sphere has holes in it like the previously mentioned grid. Atop an angular platform, which is itself grid-like (sketch included). • There is energy within the sphere, possibly a power source. There is a large amount of power fed into the grid and is processed by its passage through the substrata of the sphere’s contents. • Some light – greenish/yellow • The whole assembly (sphere and base) sits in the midst of a wide open, flat area, possibly a room with technical devices around the perimeter, such as an aircraft carrier. • The substrate in the sphere is composed of a series of microfibers in a “neural net” looking formation. Embedded in a semi-gelatinous substance. The pattern of microfibers combined with the energy charge to substrate produces results.

Viewer #5. – Rocket Man

Viewer #5 used ERV to access images and sketches as follows:

• The feeling of being in a dark place that was stuffy and damp, like a pit. • Three humanoid heads bent towards each other and the words “Guard, meeting, talk, daylight.” Note, the head to the right has a very thin neck with a large head. • Location near water. A wavy line with a triangular shape and a round shape over the wavy line. • Words: Foreign talk, “Cambri”, “Carlos”, stories, check, forest, trees.” • Flat surface with a rounded shape on it. Words: Bucket, nose, blanket.” • Words “Black people.” Sketches for previous images attached.

PHASE TWO

Phase Two, current activities at the location is in progress. The Nevada Remote Viewing Group viewers were contacted by email and given a new coordinate and the operational directions The target is a location. Describe the current activities at the location.

Viewer #6 – Charles

Viewer #6 perceived:

• Something reflective in nature, glass perhaps, in an angular object – could be metal or concrete, felt more like a vehicle. • Everything was dark. I felt hot. I felt crowded. • There was a crowd of people carrying cylindrical, slim objects, crowded close together. • A total feeling of confusion.

Viewer #7 – Amethyst

Viewer #7, using ERV, perceived buildings at the site that had been constructed since Phase One:

• A layout of wires or electrical conduction connections, in a grid, connected by small flat plates laid out over a couple of acres of land. • A very tall TV or radio tower that extended perhaps more than a hundred feet into the air, composed of interlocking girders in an elongated, triangular formation. Lights and electrical components are seen on the tower. • A building the size of an average office building, single story, filled with electronics equipment but too few personnel to man everything.

PHASE THREE: FUTURE

Viewer #7 – Amethyst

Viewer #7, using ERV, perceived that the activities at the site would be difficult because of a fire that had taken place. It was unclear whether this was a natural fire caused by lightning or other natural causes, or was the result of an electrical mishap. The base of the tower and several acres around the tower, as well as the building mentioned in Phase Two, were badly burned and unusable. Very little or occasional activity at the site. Appears, essentially, abandoned five years from now. The “Dark Canyon”

Researcher JR Hicks, often referred to “Dark Canyon”, the lair of the skinwalker entity. Located on tribal properties, access has never been granted to researchers – including Hicks who was never allowed to visit the cave. Modern day researchers believe they have discovered the location of the mysterious cave. It is located at N 40.568897 W 110 22.088 and is circled in the map below.

Many visitors and other witnesses have reported bizarre activity at Skinwalker Ranch. Below is a small collection of their tales.

“I recall falling asleep for an afternoon nap. Suddenly I felt a powerful tugging sensation, and something like an electric shock. I was pulled into consciousness but found myself in a strange but vaguely familiar environment. My impression was that I was in the same room I had fallen asleep in, but was perceiving a different layer of causality. On my left was a massive black shape, that I can only describe as a living black skin of electrified nothingness. Black hole came to mind, as the creature appeared embedded into the physics of this alternative realm. I watched as the shape morphed from an ambiguous black mass to the shape and size of a large ape, growing an arm right before my eyes. The arm reached out and grabbed my wrist. I felt an electric shock pass through me. I realized that I needed to move back towards normal conscious reality, and quickly. After that I cannot remember exactly what happened at that point. I recall several similar incidents of being inside a spinning swirl or tunnel in which the sensation was rather disturbing. I recall thinking that my consciousness was being digested, or something to that effect. Upon awakening I was back in the normal (daytime) room, with the usual poltergeist phenomena very near me — clicks, knocking sounds, etc. moving from one location in the room to the other — I believe that this was the one event where I was actually able to experience something of the true nature of the source of the strange phenomena.”

Dr. Eric Davis – National Institute of Discovery Science Researcher

“There were multiple voices that spoke in unison telepathically. Four senses were in their control so there was no odor, sound, smell, or touch, and overall body motion was frozen (as in the muscles that would not respond). Afterwards, when completely freed from this event (after the dark shadow disappeared), there was no lingering or residual odors, sounds, etc. in the immediate environment … The odor had nothing to do with the black creature or the dark shadow incidents. The odors were noted by the researcher to have occurred on different times / dates / years / location separate from the aforementioned incidents. The odors were noticed in the corner of the guy’s bedroom inside the double-wide trailer the staff lived in. The creature and shadow incidents occurred a half-mile away at different times and dates. So there was no causal connection between these things.”

Anonymous

“As we made our way down towards the Southern Gate are we experienced our radio acting up. I was about to turn it off when my son said “did the radio just say “stop stop”? We pulled over to the side of the road and turned up the radio. We gave it about five minutes and nothing happened so we took back off leaving the radio on. We had just started moving when the word LEAVE came over the radio. It was loud, mechanical and direct. It was loud enough to where it startled me. I don’t know what caused it but it was very clearly the word “leave”. Then all of the sudden our radio started working normally again.” Robert Bigelow, MUFON, FUFOR, and CUFOS

Many have questioned the true intent behind Robert Bigelow’s purchase of Skinwalker Ranch and his funding of other UFO and paranormal related projects. Rumor and accusations abound. The following was posted to the alt.paranet.ufo newsgroup in March 1996 regarding the funding of the “Big Three” UFO groups and their relationship to Robert Bigelow and his Bigelow Foundation.

Does anyone know the status of the Bigelow Foundation’s funding of the so-called “Big Three” UFO research groups?

I heard that a problem closed it down. Details anyone?

-Mike

Here was the first response which was posted the next day and provided a uniquely interesting perspective on Bigelow’s funding of UFO projects.

Be forewarned that the following picture was pieced together from various sources, some of it little more than hearsay and rumor.

The “Big Three” were also known as “The Coalition” and consisted of MUFON, FUFOR, and CUFOS. As best I understand it, Bigelow (whose supposed to be a very wealthy and shadowy Las Vegas “businessman” with rumored Mafia/CIA connections) pledged something on the order of a million dollars last year to the Big Three for UFO research. Among the projects funded by Bigelow were further animal mutilation studies by Linda Moulton Howe (I’ve heard this is still being funded) and also an intensive national search of 1947 newspaper archives. This latter project apparently increased the number of 1947 U.S. UFO sightings to over 4000 from the previously thought 800.

Sometime in late 1995, Bigelow seems to have pulled the plug after intense squabbling over who got the money and how it was going to be spent. This information came from no less than Philip Klass in his Sept. 1995 Skeptics UFO Newsletter. It’s very possible that Bigelow is a front for the CIA, and his funding was an attempt by the CIA to control the direction of research by the Big Three UFO groups. Or maybe Bigelow is just a big UFO buff.

Klass also claimed that Bigelow withdrew funding on the urging of Col. John Alexander, and that’s a whole other, very complicated story. Alexander, however has denied involvement in a response published in the 12/5/95 edition of “Saucer Smear”

Col. Alexander was formerly head of the Los Alamos Nonlethal Weapons research, which included conventional means of incapacitating opposing armies and pesky civilian crowds without necessarily killing them, but also included “psiwar” techniques such as remote viewing. Alexander recently “retired” and moved to Las Vegas but still admits to continuing his nonlethal weapons connection through future conferences and his still-existing “NATO appointment.” [12/5/95 "Saucer Smear"].

Alexander is also rumored to be head of the National Institute of Discovery Science in Las Vegas, although Alexander denies it. Also, as I understand it, NIDS is funded by — guess who? — Robert Bigelow. NIDS is supposedly involved in psychic research, remote viewing, and the afterlife. But more importantly for our group’s purposes, NIDS wants to understand the physics behind the flying saucers and maybe even build one!

According to several sources I’ve read or spoken to, Alexander was also reputedly the mysterious Colonel “Harold Phillips” in Howard Blum’s book “Out There.” Col. “Phillips” [Alexander] headed the “UFO Working Group,” an MJ-12 type UFO organization within the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], consisting of select military people and scientists from the CIA, NSA, and DIA. According to Blum, the UFO Working Group was formed in February, 1987 following a UFO radar incident in Dec. 1986, supposedly confirmed by psychic remote viewers in the DIA’s “Project Aquarius,” founded by Stanford Research Institute physicist Hal Puthoff. Puthoff was also one of the scientists in the UFO Working Group.

Many members of the Group, including Alexander and Puthoff, were also reputedly members of the so-called “Aviary,” yet another group of scientists and military people working on the UFO problem, formed earlier than the “UFO Working Group, though supposedly “independent” of the government. The “Aviary,” however seems to have been involved in the release of disinformation to UFO researchers in the 1980s, with William Moore at the focus. This is a whole other very complicated story that involves the psychological warfare campaign against physicist Paul Bennewitz in Albuquerque, Kirtland AFB AFOSI agent Richard Doty, who was forging UFO documents, Doty’s superior in the Pentagon, Col. Barry Hennessey, and Hennessey’s underling, Col. Richard Weaver, the OSI propagandist who wrote the 1994 USAF Roswell Report. This probably also involves the parties who were behind the MJ-12 papers given to Moore and Jaime Shandera in 1984, and who planted another MJ-12 “document” in the National Archives to be found by Moore and Shandera [the so-called Cutler-Twining memo].

Now back to NIDS. Hal Puthoff is also affiliated with NIDS. Puthoff was formerly an employee of the NSA, then went to the Stanford Research Institute and started remote viewing research back in 1972 with Ingo Swann and Russell Targ. Within weeks of starting the research, the CIA showed up on his doorstep, and that’s how the CIA got involved in remote viewing. Puthoff has detailed all this in an article to be published in the Spring 1996 edition of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. But for those of you who follow this group and a.a.v., this article was posted here on 2/24/96 by Thomas Burgin under the title “CIA-Initiated Remote Viewing.” Go back and read it! Puthoff includes a multitude of references.

Puthoff is a very able physicist and has published a number of articles in “Physical Review” since 1989 on the relationship between the vacuum, the electromagetic field, and gravitation. His primary theory [I hope I don't butcher this] is that gravitation and inertial mass are residual EM effects arising from the interaction of light with virtual matter in the vacuum. [In a way it's similar to the Van der Waals force in chemistry which binds molecules together into solids and liquids. The Van der Waals force is a weak, secondary force that arises from random charge fluctuations in the electrons orbiting atoms.] If Puthoff is correct, then it may be possible to cancel inertial mass through suitable manipulation of EM fields. Puthoff has also published a paper that mathematically confirms a conjecture by Casimir that it may literally be possible to extract energy from the vacuum with intense EM field gradients.

If this all sounds like the physics of saucer science, you are quite correct. Inertial mass cancellation could explain a great many characteristics of saucers, such as their enormous accelerations, right angle turns, and their ability to “float” in our atmosphere.

Based on his background, I suspect Puthoff believes there is a deep connection between saucer physics, psi phenomena such as remote viewing, and many other bizarre aspects of the UFO enigma. To quote Michael Corbin’s accompanying post, which is from the letterhead of NIDS:

>The National Institute for Discovery Science (NIDS) is a newly >formed, privately funded research organization. It focuses on >scientific exploration that emphasizes emerging, novel, and >sometimes unconventional observations and theories. In its >programs, NIDS rigorously employs accepted scientific methods and >maintains the highest ethical and quality standards. > >Because NIDS is a new institution, it is too soon to determine >exactly what specific projects will be undertaken. However, the >Institute is concentrating on exploring fundamental research on >issues concerning the nature and evolution of life and consciousness >in the universe, and their modes of interaction.

In short, NIDS appears to be a blend of hard (though fringe) physical science, and what could be loosely termed “mystical science.” It may very well be secretly backed by the CIA or some other spooky agency.

I find the whole story too confusing for words. Howard Blum took a stab at it in “Out There” but ultimately got lost. Perhaps John LeCarre will write a new spy novel and clear up everything for us!

3 comments:

This is where witchcraft, shamanism, magic or what have you comes in. If you read reports of Victorian seances, you'll see similarities (physical effects by non-physical entities): See also Carlos Castenada's Don Juan books for mention of these shape-shifters. This is obviously an anomaly area as mentioned by Adi-Kent Thomas Jeffrey amongst others (Devil's Triangle). The Puthoff EM fields is spot on and like many others, I jumped straight to that conclusion it seems.

Since a large percentage of the material in this article is taken directly from our book--including the references to the skinwalker legend and the quotes from Junior Hicks, perhaps you could at least reference it or list it as a footnote. Hunt for the Skinwalker by Colm Kelleher and George Knapp